Ernie Ball/Music Man Game Changer Review

Whether or not you want to admit it,
a lot of the most important recent
advancements in guitar electronics have
been based on digital technology. Sure, the
market for repro PAF pickups and half-century-old tube circuits isn’t going to die
anytime soon, but the modeling market has
exploded with very innovative ways of replicating
those tones and creating new ones.

Yet there’s still something about the
magic of a good magnetic pickup that
enthralls players. And with the Game
Changer, Ernie Ball embraces digital technology
not as a means of generating tones,
but for better harnessing the possibilities
of electromagnetic pickups. The end result
gives players the ability to change the routing
and phasing of the coils in every conceivable
way to create an enormous palate
of sounds.

That’s the Name of the Game
The Game Changer’s 25th-anniversary-style
single-cut body is made from chambered
basswood with a mahogany tone block and
capped with a maple top. You’ll have to be
content with gloss black, as it’s the only finish
option. But I don’t think most will be
as disappointed as they might think after
seeing how utterly gorgeous the finish looks
with this body style—especially with the
elegant single-ply cream binding.

There’s little to tip you to the capabilities
of the Game Changer. The string-through,
chrome-plated steel vibrato system, two
DiMarzio custom-designed humbuckers
with chrome covers, single volume and
tone controls, and a pair of 2- and 5-way
switches for selecting the internal circuitry’s
pickup combinations don’t suggest anything
too out of the ordinary.

A 22-fret maple neck is attached to the
body via Music Man’s well-regarded 5-bolt
neck joint, and comes with either rosewood
or maple fretboard options. The neck is also
rubbed with a combination of gunstock
oil and wax, lending a natural, broken-in
feel akin to a much-loved baseball bat. Up
on the headstock, a set of Schaller locking
machines keep the tuning stable and add a
nice counterweight that keeps the instrument
balanced when standing and playing.

Sounds pretty cut-and-dry so far,
right? Well, the Game Changer doesn’t
boast about game changing for nothing.
Concealed in the body there’s a complex
pickup coil routing system, which is powered
by three AA batteries and routed to
an analog output for pure, unadulterated
tone from the pickups. The difference is
that players can use either a dedicated web
browser plug-in via USB, or an iOS app
for their iPads through MIDI, to program
any of the literally thousands of possible
pickup combinations available in the guitar—
which range from traditional to odd.
Ever wondered what your guitar would
sound like with the coil closest to the neck
wired in series with the coil closest to the
bridge, and one of the two out of phase?
Perhaps not, but you can experiment with
that sound in a flash by setting up the
Game Changer pickup array through the
computer interface.

Each configuration you create—or borrow
and download from a fellow Game
Changer player—is loaded into the guitar
in banks A and B, and a third bank controlled
by the switch on the upper bout.
You access banks A and B by pushing down
or pulling up on the tone control. Bank A
and B each store five separate configurations
that you can summon via the 5-way
switch. The third bank—Bank Z—stores
15 more configurations that you scroll
through using the 2-way switch on the
upper bout.

Programming patches into the Game
Changer is a breeze. After plugging in
the included USB cable and loading the
free plug-in from Ernie Ball’s website
into Firefox, the guitar’s patch bays were
displayed in a matter of seconds, and I
could change the routing for the stock
patches and create new ones from scratch.
Understanding the graphical interface
isn’t completely intuitive, but it’s not hard
either, and after watching a short supplied
video clip explaining the process, I had it
mastered in a couple of minutes. And since
the 1/4" output remained active while the
guitar was connected to my computer, I
could immediately hear the fruits of my
explorations.

Game On!
The Game Changer is a very playable instrument.
And you get great tones from the
most basic voices of the two DiMarzios. But
you don’t have to dig too deep to see how
versatile and potent this tone machine is.

The Game Changer eschews a control-heavy
configuration for a more elegant and
classic look, which has a significant impact
on the guitar’s effectiveness in performance
situations. Dialing up the first patch in
Bank A (a traditional bridge humbucker
mode), the Game Changer delivered a
robust clean tone with a nice sweet spank
in the highs. The DiMarzio-built custom
bridge humbucker has good balance across
the board, but pushes the high-midrange
frequencies and articulates the pick attack
very well for a throatier sound, and overall
it’s a solid foundation for exploring the less
conventional tones.

For simplicity’s sake, I checked out some
simple combinations wired in series for Bank
A and in parallel for Bank B. And it was
pretty clear in these setups that the pickup
routing circuitry does little to diminish
the natural tone of the humbuckers. They
sounded great in each configuration and
showed off the Game Changer’s excellent
ability to cover genres ranging from jazz and
country to the heaviest of metal mayhem.

Beyond the simple series/parallel setup,
the variation in tone only got more impressive.
But the more varied the pickup setups,
the more difficult it became to keep track of
just which patch I had selected. The Game
Changer has no way of indicating what
configuration it’s in, so you’ll have to rely on
your memory, as well as touch and feel to
figure out where you are in a performance.
And while you can create a printout from the
computer or iPad interface, it was hard not to
wish for some more immediate reference.

Some of the more unorthodox patches
yielded the most interesting tones, especially
those that use an out-of-phase coil
thrown in for extra texture. Two setups in
particular—a combination of the coils closest
to the neck and bridge with the inner
bridge coil set out of phase, and another
with the bridge in full-on humbucking
mode with the outer neck coil wired in parallel—
added zeal to pick attack and tightening
up low-end output. Even in these
unconventional configurations, the guitar’s
output remained relatively level. And the
more-or-less uniform output means you can
move between radically different settings
and achieve tonal variations you’d otherwise
turn to your pedalboard for. It takes practice
and familiarization, but the end result
can be truly impressive.

The Verdict
Ernie Ball’s Game Changer is a worthy
addition to the popular Music Man line.
The tonal applications are unquestionably
useful if you’re the kind of player who
relishes the capabilities that reside within
an instrument rather than stompboxes.
And the switching possibilities the Game
Changer enables are groundbreaking.

The guitar’s simplicity is endearing and
will go a long way in helping win over
less gadget-oriented purists. But there’s
no getting around that it can also be a
hindrance when you lose track of which
patch you programmed into the selected
slot. Yes, your computer or iPad can give
you all that information in a flash, and
the interface is pretty streamlined, but a
lot of players are reluctant to introduce
such an outwardly digital element to their
rig. Nevertheless, the Game Changer is a
perfect example of how older technology
can be enhanced by cleverly applied digital
power without sacrificing analog charm.
And if you want nothing more than optimal
control over the rich analog tones you
love dearly, the Game Changer will be a
breath of fresh air.

A native of the Pacific Northwest, Jordan grew up traveling the country as the son of theater technical directors and speech instructors. His exposure to the performing arts early on helped foster his love for music and attention to detail, and upon receiving his first guitar at age 15, he became hooked. Jordan brings a considerable background of gear knowledge and tech experience to Premier Guitar, and has contributed an extensive amount of articles, artist interviews and Rig Rundown videos since late 2008. He lives in the Iowa City area, where he also works to bring music education initiatives to both local and regional communities.

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